A trip to the beauty parlor

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I poked my nose into the Salthouse yard today to see what David Cooke was up to with Trinidad & you would think you were visiting an old ladies beauty spa.  Two beautiful old girls sit side by side having a yarn about the old days as the beauticians busily grind away the years and reapply a younger, fresher look so the old girls can show off their wares at the coming summer parties.
Finding a boat yard with a railway slip now days is a rarity, the two at the Salthouse yard must have cradled hundreds of classics over the years.
I glanced at the black board & there are still a few vacant spots so if you are going to give your own lady some TLC this winter, best to get your ‘A into G’

 

Lady Margaret (Dick Lang)

LADY MARGARET

I post this as pure eye candy on a wet & windy day. Lady Margaret has to be one of the prettiest vessel’s in the CYA fleet, no matter what angle you approach her from she is dam near perfect to the eye. Her owner cares for her like a 73 year old lady should be.
Designed by Dick Lang in 1940. Powered by twin Fodens.

Classic Launch Old Movie Footage – Pacific

Video

Some ‘old’ home movie footage, of Pacific, note the varnished cabin top, we like that 🙂
Supplied by Nathan Herbert

Update from Grant Burrell

This movie is taken around 1960 before the wheel house cabin was extended and the stern cabin had canvas sides. The cabin was never varnished but my Grand Father painted an imitation fake painted wood grain, It did look good, worked well on a swing mooring but the dark paint dried the timber when on the marina.

Lady Crossley

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Some rarely seen pictures of Lady Crossley
Its not often we post pics of classics on-the-hard, but when its one of our favourite ships, well she looks pretty fine in or out of the water.
Photos ex Russell Ward

Talua

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TALUA
Built by Colin Wild for J. R. Butland. Yes was almost a sister ship to Rehia. Above are press clippings supplied by Russell Ward (ex Harold Kidd) recording the launchings of both vessels, you can see the similarity. The colour photo was taken a few years back when she was on Orams sales marina. Some how a glasshouse appears to have been dropped on top of her 😦
My good news of the day is that Rehia has been sold & has a new owner who has just joined the CYA, so she is back in the ‘club’  🙂

 

Amakura II

P1090114P1090116AMAKURA

AMAKURA II
I was heading back up the harbour late afternoon yesterday & Amakura II was sliding down the harbour looking as always stunning. Then I had a flash & thought hell I had not post the two spectacular photos of her taken by Heather Rose, on the CYA Riverhead Hotel cruise.
Update complied with input from Harold Kidd, Russell  Ward & Ken Ricketts
She was 45ft oa when built by Colin Wild for Chas Court in 1936 and had a single 350hp Lycoming petrol engine. Court had Wild lengthen her by 7ft in 1938 when she was fitted with twin Buda diesels of 220hp. C L Urquhart bought her in January 1940 and owned her throughout her NAPS service until bought by W C Wedderspoon in 1947 -49. According to the Squadron’s records and the Register of British Ships she kept her Budas during service with NAPS, Wedderspoon moored her at Hobson Bay, at the Parnell baths end, not far off the rock wall of Tamaki Drive. The next owner was P Mitchell of Wellington 1949-50 and then in 1950-55 by L R H Webber, owner of the Plummer Hat Company, a successful millinery organisation of the day, who had previously owned ‘MARO’, until N T & C C E Mills of Te Puke bought her in 1957 when she was fitted with twin 85hp Graymarines. They were replaced by 86hp Fords in 1961. In later years she went north to Whangarei, where she spent much of her life in a “drive in” shed, on the banks of the Whangarei River.
Now back in Auckland, she received a ‘facelift’ at the Peter Brooke yard & would now be one one of the most used classics on the Waitemata.
The b/w photo above was taken by Ken Ricketts in Mansion House Bay Kawau Island, Christmas 1948.

Mapu


MAPU

Story & photos by Mark Lane

Built in 1914 by Lane Motor Boat Company for TM Lane and Sons who were timber millers in Totara North, 30′ x 7′.6″  She was taken north to Whangaroa.  She was a classic flat decker and I am not sure with what she was origonally powered with other than it was an air cooled motor.

My grandfather Clarence Lane (son of Thomas Major Lane) who was instrumental in setting up the Lane Motor Boat Company) went away on his honeymoon on Mapu in 1916   She was originaly built as a pleasure and workboat where her role primarily towing logs out of the local rivers and towing barges a role she filled over the next 30-40 year.

In 1939 she came back to Auckland to be repowered with a Scrips marine conversion of a Hercules truck motor producing 110hp.  This made her the fastest boat on the whangaroa harbour pulling around 22-24 knots

During the war she acted as the supply boat for the local gun emplacement at the heads of the Whangaroa Harbour and also towed for them targets between the heads and Stephenson Island.  My father Trevor Lane (son of Clarence) used her for crayfishing around this time as well. She was re-fastened in 1950.

By the 1960,s she was primarly a pleasure boat used by my father and his brother and their families for fishing picnicing etc.   In the 1970 she was repowered with a Fordson deisel  but by the mid 1980s she was largely unused and stored intially in a boatshed on the Lane and Sons property and subsequently in the tide in the “barge shed” where her seams having opened so much the tide came in and out of her.

In the late 1990,s Lane and Sons was being wound up and I brought her in an as is where is state.  Thus I am the 4th generation of my family to own her….

Trevor Ford (son of Sam Ford and a retired boatbuilder from the Lane Motor Boat Company) assessed her and undertook to rebuild her.  He showed me a hand-drawn picture of Mapu with a cabin and dodger and then proceeded to rebuild and repower her.  The project took him over three years in a barn on his property in the Bombay hills.

She was repowered with a Nanni convesion of a Kubota deisel (50 hp)

She was relaunched in 2003.  She heads north  in summer to Whangaroa her “home” for then retrns to Auckland at the beginning of winter and is berthd in Pine Harbour Marina.  She competed in the 2008 Rudder Cup race around sail rock and came second in her division.

Cruising speed  is 8.2 knots and full speed about 9.7-10.4knots depending on the cleanliness of her hull!!!.

I suspect the owner of Raindance will acknowledge she is pretty quick for her size and power.. (edited – the owner of Raindance hopes the CYA launch handicapper reads waitematawoodys 🙂  )

Aumoe

Image

Aumoe
The caption says ‘Deep Water Cove’.
Of interest is the special effects applied to b/w photos in the days before colour cameras.

Aumoe

12-07-2019 Input from Deb Green

The photo below is from Tom Wood (Deb’s uncle). Tom owned Aloha.

Picture 008